The Christmas Wish List: The perfect cosy read to settle down with this autumn

by Heidi Swain

  ‘No,’ I sniffed, feeling some of the fight leave me, ‘no, it wasn’t.’

  Not only were my legs now seizing back up, but the rest of my body felt as tight as a coiled spring. It would take more than Dolly’s herbal potion to ease the kinks out of this one.

  ‘It was to my parents,’ I explained. ‘Dolly’s idea of a cathartic greeting card and a very emotional letter to go with it.’

  ‘And you really didn’t mean for it to be sent?’

  ‘No,’ I swallowed, ‘I really didn’t.’

  ‘But after our chat,’ he said, ‘I thought you still might be thinking about getting back in touch with them.’

  ‘Yes, well, thinking and doing are two very different things, aren’t they?’

  Beamish nodded.

  ‘I might have let the card go,’ I told him, ‘but not the letter.’

  ‘Well,’ said Dolly, trying to make the best of things and failing, ‘think of it this way. You’ve been more than willing to let fate lend a hand in your future recently, perhaps you should let it lead the way through this situation, too?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘this isn’t fate. This doesn’t feel like fate. This is one almighty cock-up.’

  ‘Look,’ said Beamish taking in my sorrowful expression, ‘I have a mate who’s a postman. I’ll go and see him. Find out if he’s opening the boxes in the morning and ask if there’s any way we could get the card back?’

  ‘Could you do that?’ I asked, jumping back up again in spite of my protesting legs. ‘Could you take it back do you think?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Beamish told me, ‘but I promise I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘You can’t ask for more than that, Hattie,’ said Dolly.

  She was right, I couldn’t, but if anyone could have quickly found the formula to turn back time I for one would have been more than happy to be the guinea pig to have first dibs on giving it go.

  *

  It was stomach churning walking past the postbox the next morning, especially when I read that the first collection wouldn’t be happening until nine. That meant the card and letter was still sitting there, mere centimetres from my fingers and there was nothing I could do about it.

  ‘Come on,’ said Dolly. ‘There’s no point loitering. We’ll be late if we don’t get on.’

  ‘But this says the collection isn’t until nine,’ I said accusingly, ‘and there wasn’t one at all last night so I don’t see why you were in such a hurry to get your cards gone.’

  Dolly didn’t comment.

  ‘If you’d left them until this morning,’ I muttered on, ‘then none of this would have happened.’

  I knew it wasn’t fair to keep niggling at her, but I couldn’t let it drop.

  ‘Don’t you think I haven’t laid awake most of the night thinking that very thing myself?’ Dolly snapped back. ‘But as they were done, I wanted them posted. One less thing to have to worry about.’

  I couldn’t imagine she had all that much to worry about, but I did feel bad that she’d had a restless night. It wasn’t like her to snap. Lack of sleep was the last thing either of us needed while we were preparing for the school performance on Wednesday.

  ‘I know,’ I said, taking her bag and linking my arm through hers. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I didn’t catch sight of Beamish until morning break and as he came over to where Dolly and I were checking costumes for the dress rehearsal I could see he wasn’t carrying an envelope.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Hattie,’ he sighed and I knew he hadn’t managed it.

  There was no suggestion of a double bluff, no envelope tucked into his back pocket to be produced with a flourish. Wynbridge’s answer to Ironman wasn’t infallible after all.

  ‘I did try, but my mate wasn’t on shift and the guy who was wouldn’t help. He said it was more than his job was worth.’

  I nodded and tried to swallow away the lump in my throat. This trip to Wynbridge was turning into a total disaster.

  ‘Oh well,’ I said, knowing I would have to resign myself to what had happened and feeling the tiniest glimmer of relief that if there was a response it would come to Dolly’s cottage or my inbox, rather than the flat. ‘It’s done. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Actually, ‘said Dolly, rubbing my arm before ticking the third set of sparkly angel wings off her checklist, ‘it might turn out to matter a great deal.’

  *

  Luckily for me, Jonathan messaged to say he was inundated with work and wouldn’t be able to call until later in the week. It was a huge relief because I didn’t think I would be able to stop myself from telling him what had happened. Following his staunch work ethic, I threw myself into helping at school and did what I could to ensure that the performance on Wednesday, in which every child had a part, (even if they were only a sheep present at the birth of baby Jesus), ran like clockwork.

  There was no job I couldn’t turn my hand to. Whether I was reattaching elastic on masks, adding sequins to hemlines or painting scenery, I was up for it. Anything to stop me imagining that card and letter winging its way across the country, but I was hard pushed to eradicate it completely from my thoughts.

  Sometimes my head was filled with an Indiana Jones style map, complete with theme tune. You know the ones they use in the films to plot his progress across continents in a hot air balloon or something. I pictured a robin, just like the one on the card, with the envelope clasped tightly in its little beak, battling blizzards to make sure it reached its destination and was delivered right on time.

  ‘You’re still thinking about that card, aren’t you?’ Beamish asked as he took in my faraway expression. ‘I really am sorry about it, you know.’

  It was the night before the play and, having got my crush for him (helped in no small part by his cock-up with the card) under control, I had agreed to stay late to help him with some last-minute tweaking to the new stage lighting. The money for it had been raised by the PTA and, as this was to be its debut performance, it had to be impressive.

  ‘If it’s any consolation, it won’t have arrived yet,’ he said, climbing the ladder to position the spotlights above the recently repaired stage. ‘Not at this time of year.’

  ‘Don’t you think?’ I asked, squinting up at him and momentarily blinding myself.

  ‘Don’t look at the lights, you idiot,’ he laughed as I grimaced and rubbed my eyes. ‘Just stand there so I can see where to angle them.’

  ‘It might be there tomorrow though, mightn’t it?’ I said, unable to let it drop. ‘I can’t imagine it will take longer than three days.’

  Beamish didn’t answer and I tried not to think about Mum and Dad reading what I had written.

  ‘Oh, blast,’ I said, rushing across the stage and out of his pool of light.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The manger,’ I called up to him. ‘I was supposed to paint it this afternoon but got asked to do something else. It completely slipped my mind.’

  ‘Does it need painting?’

  ‘It’s a cardboard box from the supermarket, with twelve bottles of Merlot stamped on the side so I would say yes, it definitely needs painting.’

  Beamish chuckled and climbed back down the ladder.

  ‘Do you want a hand?’ he offered. ‘I’m all done here and I can’t lock up until everyone’s gone.’

  ‘I think it’s just us now,’ I said, looking out into the empty car park.

  ‘Come on then,’ he said, scooping up the doll which had been drafted in to play the starring role. ‘Let’s leave Jesus and his bed of straw here and get this done. I might even be able to give the paint a knotty wood finish.’

  ‘Oh my,’ I said, following him out of the hall, ‘fancy.’

  Beamish, of course, was as good as his word, and after we’d waited for the first coat of brown paint to dry, he then expertly added some knots and bark embellishments in a darker shade which, from a distance looked more or less like the real thing.

  ‘Well,
well, well,’ I said standing back to admire his handiwork, ‘you really are a man of hidden talents, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’d be amazed,’ he winked and I felt my face flush.

  Gestures like that weren’t going to keep my crush at arm’s-length for long.

  ‘In this job,’ he went on, thankfully unaware of my change of colour, ‘you have to be able to turn your hand to pretty much anything and everything.’

  ‘For someone with such huge hands,’ I stupidly carried on, making the situation a gazillion times worse, ‘you have a very gentle touch.’

  What the hell possessed me to say that? And to make the situation worse, all I could now think about was the way his fingers had rested on my waist at the ice rink.

  ‘What I mean is,’ I crashed on, ‘is that you’re good with your hands.’

  He looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t mean like that.’

  ‘What do you mean then?’ he asked, a smile pulling at his lips.

  ‘I mean . . .’

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ he laughed, ‘let’s just leave it, shall we?’

  More than embarrassed, I nodded and gathered the brushes together to wash them. He came to stand next to me, emptying the jam jars of murky water into the sink as I turned on the tap to start rinsing everything off. The water pressure was not what I was expecting and it came spurting out in a series of short bursts, covering us and everything else within a metre radius.

  ‘Oh my god,’ I gasped. ‘It’s freezing! Why won’t it stop?’

  Beamish leant over and grabbed the tap, managing to turn it off. He went to say something but caught sight of my face and T-shirt and started to laugh instead. I looked up at him and laughed back. We were both soaked and covered in splatters of thick brown paint.

  ‘I better add this to my list of urgent jobs,’ he said, reaching around me for a handful of paper towels. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘this’ll get the worst of it off.’

  We mopped up as best we could and I was about to make a second attempt to clean the brushes when I felt him closing the gap next to me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You missed a bit,’ he said, gently sweeping my hair aside and pressing the towel against my cheek. ‘It will probably stain if you don’t get it off and how good will that look for the parents tomorrow?’

  ‘They’ll probably just think I’ve thrown myself into my work,’ I said, turning to face him as he cupped my face with his other hand and tilted it up to the light.

  Just for a second, he took his eyes off the splodge of paint and looked into mine. I knew I should look away, but I couldn’t. It was as if there was a magnetic field pulling me towards him.

  ‘Hattie,’ he said, his eyes flicking to my lips as I leant further in, ‘what are you doing?’

  For a second, time stood still and then I came to my senses.

  ‘Returning the favour,’ I said, somehow managing to stop myself and reaching to grab another paper towel, ‘you’ve missed a bit too.’

  He took the towel from me and I quickly turned back to the sink.

  ‘How’s that?’ he asked, once he had scrubbed at his face.

  His complexion was almost as red as mine, but I couldn’t tell if that was because he’d rubbed too hard or was feeling as hot under the collar as I was.

  ‘Great,’ I said, ‘all gone.’

  ‘I’m just going to check on the boiler then,’ he said, ‘and then we should really get going. It’s a big day tomorrow.’

  I watched as he rushed away, my face burning again. What the hell was wrong with me? I was an almost engaged person and I had very nearly just kissed another man.

  Chapter 13

  Had it been any other school day, I would have phoned in sick, actually I would have done anything on any day to avoid having to face Beamish again, but it wasn’t any other day and I knew as soon as I opened my eyes that I had no option but to just get on with it. After all, it could have been worse, I could have actually kissed him, rather than almost locked lips.

  As soon as I crossed the school threshold, I became aware of a change in atmosphere. There was a sense of excitement and expectation and from every classroom came the chorus of a different carol, someone noisily practising their lines, or someone else wailing that they’d forgotten theirs. The change in mood was a godsend. We were all rushed off our feet and, thankfully, it was nowhere near as difficult to avoid Beamish as I had imagined.

  ‘What on earth’s the matter with you this morning?’ Dolly asked me during morning break when she brushed by and I jumped almost as high as the ceiling. ‘You’re like a cat on a hot tin roof.’

  I had thought I’d been playing it rather cool, but apparently not.

  ‘This is no day for being distracted,’ she said handing me a mug of coffee.

  ‘I know,’ I dithered, in spite of my best intentions not to. ‘I’m just so tense about this afternoon and, added to that the thought that right now Mum and Dad could be reading my letter, it’s all a bit much.’

  Obviously I couldn’t mention the near-kiss which was also playing havoc with my head.

  ‘Fear and excitement,’ Dolly tutted, gazing off into the distance and looking more Miss Marple than ever. ‘Now that is a heady mix.’

  ‘It is,’ I agreed, blowing into the mug to cool my coffee.

  ‘And completely understandable,’ she continued as I took my first searing sip, ‘but it doesn’t explain what Beamish said.’

  I hastily swallowed the liquid down and felt it blazing a trail to my stomach to join the butterflies.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I spluttered. ‘What did Beamish say?’

  ‘Well, he’s a bit all over the place this morning too,’ Dolly elaborated, ‘and when I asked him what was the matter, he said that I had to ask you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, my heart thumping, but not because of the caffeine.

  ‘Did something happen last night?’ Dolly asked.

  ‘What?’ I squeaked.

  ‘When you stayed late, was there some problem with the stage or something? We can’t have children pitching off the front again.’

  ‘No,’ I said, taking another mouthful of coffee and thinking on my feet. ‘There was nothing wrong with the stage or the lights, but we did have to quickly paint the manger. I daresay he was just worried that it hadn’t dried.’

  Dolly opened her mouth to say something else but I didn’t give her the chance.

  ‘In fact,’ I said, tipping the rest of my still too hot coffee down the sink, ‘I better go and check on it before the bell goes.’

  The hall that afternoon was packed. It seemed that practically every parent, grandparent, sibling and cousin had turned out to watch the performance of the year. In fact, it was so full that I thought there were going to be fisticuffs over the last chair but as Beamish dimmed the lights and the music began, everyone settled down and a hush fell over the audience.

  I hovered in the wings making running repairs to costumes, handing out props and jollying along those who looked as if they were about to deliver something other than their lines. Mr Patterson didn’t miss a beat at the piano and by the final rousing chorus of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, there was barely a dry eye to be seen.

  The painted manger had pride of place centre stage and the spotlight shining on it made my face flush all the more as I thought about what had almost happened after its makeover. I wondered if Beamish was thinking along the same lines, but hidden behind the lights his face was in shadow so I couldn’t see, which was probably just as well.

  Mr Matthews stood up and made a wonderful speech thanking the children for their enthusiastic performances and the staff for putting in so much effort to make the afternoon one to remember. He was keen to remind the audience that everyone had gone above and beyond this academic year and that the perceived lengthy school holidays were often anything but for the staff when there was so much work to do behind the scenes before and after the official ter
m dates. His speech raised a few parents’ eyebrows but the staff looked delighted to have their efforts so publicly acknowledged.

  ‘And as it’s not too early in the afternoon,’ Mr Matthews announced, closing his speech, ‘if you would like to wait in the usual place outside, we’ll get the children changed and let them out to you straightaway.’

  A cheer went up from the children who were still assembled on the stage and I knew there would be a mad rush to see who could be out of the door and home first.

  ‘How are you getting on?’ Rose asked, as she popped into class a little while later. ‘Everyone gone?’

  ‘I’ve just let the last one go,’ I told her, as I folded up the few remaining pieces of costumes which had been left behind in the push to get out the door. For a few minutes it had been bedlam, the classroom caught up in a maelstrom of discarded clothes and mismatched shoes. ‘Poor Daisy had to wait until three fifteen because her parents couldn’t get time off work to come.’

  ‘Such a shame, isn’t it?’ said Rose, ‘but at least we’ve recorded it this year. We couldn’t last year because we had one child we couldn’t film or photograph. It was a shame, but we couldn’t risk catching him in shot.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have edited him out?’

  ‘Possibly, but we decided it wasn’t worth the risk. Come down to the staff room when you’re done. We’re having mince pies to celebrate the afternoon’s success.’

  ‘All right,’ I said, my attention returning to an abandoned shepherd’s outfit as I spotted Beamish loitering in the corridor.

  ‘How’s it looking in here?’ he asked, once Rose had gone.

  ‘Not too bad,’ I said, looking around. ‘You won’t bother cleaning tonight, will you? It’s the party on Friday so it hardly seems worth it.’

  I knew he was rushed off his feet as the two cleaners who usually took care of the vacuuming had both called in sick and he was having to pick up the slack. The poor chap. He really did have his hands full in the run-up to Christmas.